Fickle Petals
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [drabble collection] They only stayed beautiful for a moment before crumbling. / 2. Juri's memories of her mother are faded, but she doesn't need a new one to replace them because she has enough. 3. Ryo forgets that there are such things as infections and illnesses in the real world, but he is quick to rediscover.
1. Tohma&Relena, Candy Floss

**A/N:** This collection contains uncorrelated drabbles (no poetry) part of several different challenges (and possibly competitions too) from the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum (link's on my profile)

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**Fickle Petals**  
_a collection of drabbles_

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**Character(s)**: Tohma H. Norstein, Relena Norstein  
**Challenge(s):** Sibling Boot Camp, #024 - candy floss

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She knew she'd get sick if she ate it all, but the soft squishy pink looked too appealing to resist. 'Tohma!' she tugged at her brother's sleeve and he looked at her. 'Let's get some fairy floss!'

He frowned a little, and she tossed a pout to him. 'Just a little bit?' she cajoled. 'Just a little pinch from yours?'

Which meant Tohma would have to eat the rest, and he grimaced at the thought of all that sweet..

Relena caught the frown. 'We could get a doggy bag?' she volunteered. 'I promise I won't steal any extra bites.'

'It'll shrivel up,' Tohma said absently. 'It'll be the size of your tablets by the time you'll want it again.

'Aww…' Relena released her grip on her brother's sleeve and looked at the fairy floss coming out of the machine. 'I suppose it has to be eaten fresh then.'

Just as well probably, as she doubted her grandmother would let her keep the doggy bag. She'd be angry at the fairy floss anyway. 'Maybe we can try the fishing –' She stopped when she realised, while trying to grab his brother's sleeve again, that Tohma was no longer there. 'Tohma?' she called.

'I'm coming!' she heard from the crowd, and she craned her neck to try and find her brother's blond hair in the sea of black and brown. She couldn't sitting down in her wheelchair, and while she could have stood up to try, she had so many other things she wanted to see and do with her brother that day.

He returned quickly as he'd said, with a stick of fairy floss in hand. It wasn't as big as the one's she'd seen with other kids though, and she looked at it a moment before accepting it.

'I asked for a smaller one,' Tohma explained. 'Though you still can't eat all of this.'

Relena smiled. 'Half and half?' she asked. It looked just about.

And they did split it like that, Tohma taking a seat on a nearby bench and Relena in her wheelchair and the stick of fairy floss being passed back and forth until it was gone.


	2. Juri, Auxiliary

**A/N:** This collection contains uncorrelated drabbles (no poetry) part of several different challenges (and possibly competitions too) from the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum (link's on my profile)

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**Fickle Petals**  
_a collection of drabbles_

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**Character(s)**: Juri Katou  
**Challenge(s):** One Character Boot Camp, #001 - auxiliary

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Juri's memories of her mother were indistinct and dull like a once bright cloth washed too many times. The few photos she had separated them: the images of a woman singing softly to herself while hanging out the washing were the first to fade into oblivion; those memories of her sitting quietly with a gentle smile were the ones that remained.

They were enough for Juri, who grew in the shadow of that gentle smile while everything else became intangible like dying smoke. Even her father drifted: his face and form and voice etched themselves permanently into her mind, but it was like that all happened behind a translucent shower screen – a barrier she couldn't reach through.

Juri was okay though. She had everything she needed: a roof, clothes, food, other odds and ends and a dinner on Sunday evenings where there was only father and daughter and no shower screen dividing them. And other times she had the gentle smile that had faded over the years to become even more tender to accompany her. She didn't need another family member.

But his father disagreed, because he brought a new wife, a new mother for her. But Juri didn't need a new mother; she had all she needed from her old one: that gentle and indistinct smile she could mirror onto her own face and carry with her.


	3. Ryo, Needles

**A/N:** This collection contains uncorrelated drabbles (no poetry) part of several different challenges (and possibly competitions too) from the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum (link's on my profile)

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**Fickle Petals**  
_a collection of drabbles_

* * *

**Character(s)**: Ryo Akiyama  
**Challenge(s):** The 100 Digi-fics challenge, #094 - needle

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There weren't infections in the Digital World. Not what humans defined as infections. There was no such thing as a Digimon bacteria, or a fungi. Parasites existed, like Parasimon, but she was a Digimon and she clung to their surface of Digimon and controlled their bodies. She didn't change their data.

The Digital World did have viruses though, viruses that messed with the integrity of Digital life forms and their worlds as well. That erased data instead of allowing the usual recycling. That warped data so that it became unrecognisable and created new subtypes of Digimon – like BlackTyrannamon arising from the normal Tyrannamom. And then there were D-reaper like things as well, things that lodged itself into the mainstream and were that much more detriment.

But they didn't get things like tetanus from stepping on rusted nails, or chicken pox, or even the common flu. Things like that didn't exist in the Digital World, and Ryo had almost forgotten they _did_ exist in the real world. That he needed to do things like brush his teeth so they didn't rot, to cook fish as opposed to eating it raw – and he'd learnt his lesson quickly after he wound up with a two metre long worm in his stomach after eating raw fish in the real world.

It was Cyberdramon who had forced him into that habit, the dragon simply not patient enough to wait until it cooked. But the parasite was not a pleasant house guest, and Ryo found himself rediscovering a side of the real world that didn't translate over to the Digital one – since even _food_, that neither human nor Digimon required in the Digital World, could be found there, but medicines could not.

Neither could vaccines, or even needles, and Ryo rediscovered those as well as the parasite-related illness also led to him catching up on his vaccine course.


End file.
